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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Thefalsegamer177 on 2025-12-30 18:25:08+00:00.
So I’m in my basement installing a new electrical circuit, feeling moderately competent and dangerously confident.
Suddenly my boiler’s aquastat relay starts absolutely losing its mind. Clicking, buzzing, acting like it’s possessed. I shut the boiler off, assume I angered the HVAC gods, and decide to keep working.
A few hours later, the lights in my master bedroom start flickering like a low-budget horror movie. Then the WiFi starts cutting out, because of course it does.
At this point I’m convinced I either:
Wired something catastrophically wrong
Discovered a new form of household poltergeist
Am about to learn an expensive lesson
I start troubleshooting everything individually. Boiler? Seems fine. Lighting circuit? Fine-ish. Router? Annoyed but innocent.
Then I check the panel.
One bus bar is rock solid at 120V.
The other is… freestyling. 114V. 105V. 90V. Just vibes.
Cue several hours of confusion, multimeter side-eye, and questioning my life choices before I call the power company, fully expecting them to tell me it’s my problem.
Utility comes out, takes one look, and goes: “Yeah, the sidewalk plow ripped the grounding strap off the transformer.”
Turns out the plow yeeted the ground, causing one leg of my service to sag randomly and make my entire house slowly unravel in real time.
So no, I didn’t break my boiler, my lights, or the internet.
A snowplow did.
TL;DR: Installed a new circuit, house started acting haunted, one leg of power dropped to ~90V, turns out a sidewalk plow stole the transformer’s grounding strap and gaslit me for half a day